Spotlight on Gustavo Velez, SharePoint Rock Star

Gustavo Velez is a Spanish-speaking MOSS MVP (currently based in the Netherlands) who, as regular readers of Bamboo Nation are already aware, speaks his mind freely regarding his views on SharePoint.  As the multilingual author of two books, Programación con SharePoint 2007 (in Spanish) and the forthcoming Workflows and SharePoint 2007: Going with the Flow (in English), Gustavo offers a unique perspective on both the SharePoint ecosystem and user community, so we were thrilled by the opportunity to formally introduce Gustavo to Bamboo Nation.  

You're a Manager in the Solutions Development department at Avanade Netherlands, a global consultancy company.  Can you talk a bit about your role at Avanade?   Are the Solutions your group develops purely SharePoint-based?

Avanade has roughly 9,000 employees distributed around the globe working with all kinds of applications related exclusively to Microsoft technologies. Currently, about half (in Holland) are SharePoint projects or closely linked to it. And personally, as a SharePoint specialist, my projects are SharePoint related, of course.  At the moment, I am working as architect for a project in Norway that will be used as the communication and collaboration tool for 40,000 users in 14 countries in Europe and Asia, with SharePoint farms distributed around the globe. It is a very challenging project, as you can imagine, not only technically but also in the 'human' aspect of coordination and cooperation.

You're multilingual and have authored SharePoint articles in English, Spanish, and Dutch for a variety of SharePoint sites (Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine, Developer.com, Mindsharp and CodeGuru, to name just a few).  Being a triple-threat regarding language fluency, how do you determine the outlet / language for a given article or whitepaper?  (I.e., do you choose to have a piece debut in a specific language based on the perceived demand for the subject matter among native speakers, or is it more often based on assignments or asks from a content provider?)

It's probably a mixture of all of the reasons you mention.  I have an advantage in that I'm writing about only one theme (SharePoint) and principally about the technical aspects of the product, and they're not limited to one language. There is a factor that I always take into consideration:  because there is so much technical literature about SharePoint in English, the general concepts have been explained many times; you can't really add much to the discussion. In Spanish, the situation is different; technical information about SharePoint is really limited, and it is very important to explain the basic concepts. As regards the Netherlands, as you know, knowledge of English in the country is excellent, thus we don't have any language issues. The articles I've published in Dutch are more focused on localized themes, such as projects and experiences in the country itself.

You're the first SharePoint expert with whom we've spoken for this series who's not based in the U.S. Would you please speak to the nature of the SharePoint community in the Netherlands and in Spain?  Is the MVP scene as tightly knit as it seems to be in the U.S.?  Are you involved with any User Groups?

I am very glad to pave the way for non-English speakers in the Bamboo Nation. In Spanish we say that 'the world is large and waiting to be opened up', meaning there is a huge world out there that definitely is interesting to explore and establish contact with... I hope this is the first in an expanding series.

Coming back to your question, the Dutch SharePoint community is not large and everyone knows everybody... that doesn't mean we don't do things together; on the contrary, we have a 'Knowledge Workers' group which meets regularly. The Spanish-speaking world is several times bigger and therefore we have to deal with different problems: geographical distribution in two continents, huge distances, sometimes a shortage of infrastructure and always economical constraints. Because my position as a South-American born European resident, I am in an ideal position to bridge the community in Spain and the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America. I'm one of the founders of SUGES (SharePoint Users Group - Spain) and at the moment I'm creating another Users Group for Central America/Caribbean/Northern part of South America.  In the southern region, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, etc., there is already a Users Group I participate in. My intention is to encourage the three Users Groups to work together, thus creating a strong organization that represents the interests and expectations of almost 300 million potential SharePoint users.

Your book, Programación con SharePoint 2007, was the first Spanish-language book to be published on programming in SharePoint.  Any plans in the works to bring the book out in English?

Not really. The lifetime of this kind of book is equal to the version of the product itself and we are expecting the new version of SharePoint soon. Also, there are already some excellent books in English covering the same theme; it's pointless to carry on with the same topic. I am looking forward to writing a similar book in Spanish for the next SharePoint version and we'll see what the possibilities of something in English are when the time comes.

Your new book is due very soon, and focuses on Workflows.  This second book will represent your English-language debut in book form.  When will we see that book hitting the shelves, and what can you tell us about it?  (I haven't even been able to ferret out the title yet!)

Well as it's coming out shortly, this is a scoop for you; the title is Workflows and SharePoint 2007: Going with the Flow; it's a 'hands on' book for developers, using (we think) a clever business case as the thread that illustrates all facets of developing Workflows in SharePoint. The book was set to hit the shelves in March  - we were waiting for the foreword (written  by Eilene Hao, a Program Manager for SharePoint Workflows at Microsoft and a recognized authority on the topic) and now that we have it in tow, it will be out  mid-April. As SharePoint 2007 is fading out, we're aware that it may be a little late for the book, but the intention is to be ready with an update as soon as the new version of SharePoint goes commercial. We also think the reference nature of the book will keep it on developer's bookshelves regardless.

It's always fascinating to hear SharePoint experts talk about their professional experiences prior to turning their full attention towards SharePoint.  What was your own path to SharePoint?

Actually, my background is far from software development. I have degrees in mechanical and electronic engineering and, some 20 years ago, worked on designing controls for windmills. At that time, digital technology was really new and exciting; the concept of making hardware that you could control with software was a thrilling idea. I worked with 'Assembly' and 'C' for a couple years and gradually chose software over hardware. Finally, with Visual Basic 3, I made the definitive switch to programming for business applications and approximately 10 years ago I began to work with SharePoint - when it was called Site Server. I didn't do much with SharePoint 2001, but from the first beta of SharePoint 2003 (at the beginning of 2002), I began working full time with the product... so I guess you can say that I have been working with SharePoint for 10 years.

Your site, the provocatively named SkunkWorks SharePoint Portal, is ... well, it's in Spanish, so I've had to rely on Google's English-language SkunkWorks translation for my investigations.  The stated mission of the site (as translated by Google), is to provide a Spanish-language resource for information related to Microsoft Servers and SharePoint.  As the Webmaster for the site, is this a mission you've taken on purely by yourself?

I'd like to tell you how I began with the site: it was purely out of frustration... 5 years ago, I was looking for some SharePoint information and realized there was nothing in Spanish (at this time there was not a lot of information, in any language, by the way). Then, after some research on the subject, it was clear that - except for a couple people - there was nobody using the server in the Spanish-speaking world. At the same time, it was clear to me that SharePoint could be as big a success there as it was in Europe. So that was the beginning... and the name, well, I'm a big fan of the Al Capp classic comic strips from the 40s; "Skunk Works" was a secret still operated by Big Barnsmell where he made "Kickapoo joy juice" by grinding dead skunks and old shoes. Also in the 1940s, Lockheed Martin (the aircraft maker) used the name for its 'irregular' projects; the company I was working for at the time had no interest in those kinds of projects, so I had to do them on my own time... anyway, as we speak, the site has a half million hits per month and is still growing at a rate of 20%  per year... and the mission (a personal mission, if you like) remains the same: spread the word of SharePoint throughout the Spanish-speaking world... and the name, well, it just 'sounds' good, don't you don't think!

Since I mentioned the Google translation of the site, and since you're uniquely qualified to speak to this question, would you agree that Google's English-language SkunkWorks translation is a worthy next-best thing for non-Spanish-language readers interested in consuming your original Spanish-language content?

Yes, automatic translaters are becoming better and better, especially from most languages to English. But they are, unfortunately, one-directional: if you try to translate English information into Spanish, very often you will have only... hmmm... let's say it in a soft way,  incomprehensible garbage.

Your first guest blog for Bamboo (originally appearing in English, and later in Spanish) was advocating, it seemed to me, the potentially controversial subject of Microsoft devising an alternative pricing model for SharePoint.  I'm curious what sort of feedback you might have received on the piece thus far, particularly from fellow MVPs or from Microsoft.

In general, I have had two types of feedback: from English-speaking MVPs there is understanding for the situation, but it is a 'far from my bed' problem for them. As can be expected, from the other-language MVPs, particularly from countries with less powerful economies, not only understanding but also total agreement. And, I must say, it makes sense: Microsoft already has differential price levels for other products, Office, for example; so why not do the same for SharePoint? If you see the price distribution in a SharePoint implementation, the biggest chunk goes to Windows' licenses, not to SharePoint; but companies have already made a big investment in Windows and don't have a budget to buy MOSS: therefore they are obliged to use WSS. And now that you mention it, I realize I haven't had feedback from Microsoft... probably they are so busy creating the next version of SharePoint that they don't have time to read blogs.

Along with your fellow MOSS MVP, Carlos Segura, you co-created the SharePoint TypeMock Wrapper which facilitates unit testing in SharePoint, and made the tool freely available to the SharePoint community on CodePlex.  What has the reaction been from the community to that tool?

Really positive! It was a precursor of the TypeMocks version the company purpose-built for SharePoint. We've had many discussions with the guys from TypeMocks about the technical and practical problems of Unit Testing for SharePoint. As you may know, before TypeMocks it was virtually impossible to realize Unit Testing in SharePoint projects; now, we don't have the perfect silver bullet (yet), but TypeMocks allows us to realize a big part of the work. There remain many problems to resolve, but I am confident we are going in the right direction; for example, the issues around Test-Driven development for SharePoint are not yet addressed by TypeMocks because the code used in the mock classes are closely linked to the source code of the working code, thus disallowing developing the Unit Test classes before the actual code... in any case, don't get me started:  it has been an issue that has plagued me for a long time and I can speak about for hours.

Do you have any new community tools in the works, by chance?

Not really, unfortunately. With a full-time job, site maintenance, writing and trying to organize the work associated with the User Groups - not to mention keeping up with new developments - there is not much free time for other projects... and I miss it, I must say. Maybe one of these days, if I win the jackpot, I'll take holidays for a couple of years and go to an island in the Caribbean, take my lady and computer with me (in that order) and realize all the plans that are swirling around in my head regarding SharePoint... dreams.

Have you taken part in the SharePoint conference speaking circuit, or have you primarly focused your attentions on writing and development?  If no, is this an area you'd like to explore in the future?

I participate in a number of events on a regular basis, mainly for the Spanish-speaking community in Spain and Latin America as well as a few in the Netherlands, but until now it has not been my main focus. The reason is the same as above, time constraints.  That said, I'm definitely interested and if the right proposals come my way, I'll just cut back on the hours of sleep.

Let's wrap up with a few questions that we like to ask of all SharePoint experts that we talk to, beginning with: what's your favorite feature/functionality of SharePoint?

As a pur sang developer, of course my favorite SharePoint feature is the Object Model. The Object Model ensures that SharePoint is not only a Document Management and/or Content Management system, but also a development platform that allows us to manipulate functionality and adapt it to our requirements. This makes the server, in my opinion, the most exciting Microsoft product at the moment.

Conversely, what do you feel is SharePoint's biggest weakness/drawback?

It may sound strange, but to me the major weakness in SharePoint is the people using the system. By this I mean all the people using it: designers, developers, architects and 'normal' users as well. A common problem with technical SharePoint specialists (architects and developers, including myself) is that we sometimes forget that SharePoint is not the solution for all software problems and we try to 'force' the system to do tasks that would be better served with other tools, servers or custom developing. Also, we often forget that SharePoint is not an easy product for the final users and that places us in the position of making 'education' an obligatory part of the project. I have seen more than one technically-perfect SharePoint project fail miserably because the final users were not properly prepared to work with the system.

What is your vision of collaborative computing five years from now?

It is becoming apparent that the next version of SharePoint is more an evolution than a revolution, so for the next 3 to 4 years (until Office 15) we will be working with nearly the same functionality... of course, the system will be more stable, certain problems resolved and new functionality added, but the manner of working will remain the same. After that, perhaps 5 or 6 years from now, we may see more integration between systems, placing SharePoint the central repository of information in the Microsoft strategy. For example, although we have slimmed- down SharePoint page-views for mobile applications (telephones, for example), they are far from optimal; in most cases they are slow and sluggish.  If I'm on the road and don't have a good internet connection and need to access information from my mobile... yes, I know, you're going to say: "the cloud is coming..." all information, always and everywhere available... actually, I think "cloud computing" is just another  trendy  expression that will come and go! If you look closely at "the cloud", you could say that we have been using it from the onset of SharePoint, more than 10 years ago...

When you're not immersed in the SharePoint ecosystem, are there any hobbies or interests in which you indulge that you'd care to share with our readers?

Aside from the chronic shortage of time discussed earlier, I try to keep on top of what is happening in the world; albeit sometimes events seem so incomprehensible that I prefer the refuge of my little, logical computer world. I work out a few hours a week; I practiced Aikido for many years, but unfortunately it is impossible to maintain a strict training program with my schedule... and lastly, but absolutely no less importantly, I try to maintain a relationship with the amazing woman at my side, not always an easy task but always a day-to-day exciting experience.